Leva's Perfect Kung Pao ChickPeas

Ingredients: 

Oil (I prefer sesame for all of this) 

Rice Vinegar 

Soy Sauce

Lime (juice)

Ginger

Garlic

Spring Onion, separated whites and green tops

2 cans Chickpeas, rinsed

Broccoli 

Matchstick carrots (you can add any veggie you want!  I also love it with red bell pepper) 

Bottled Kung Pao Sauce (stir-fry sauce works in a pinch. It would just need heat added and a little more vinegar)

Peanuts (unsalted!!!!)

Rinse chickpeas. Sprinkle them with a bit of corn starch till slightly coated.

Marinade starched chickpeas for AT LEAST 30 minutes in: 

2 tablespoons rice vinegar 

2 tablespoons soy sauce 

1 teaspoon of Chili sauce (optional)

1 teaspoon of oyster sauce (optional)

2 teaspoons of sesame oil (olive or coconut works OK)

Juice of half lime

Dollop of fresh ginger 

Dollop of garlic

Few twists of cracked pepper

(I taste the marinade after it's all mixed with chickpeas. It should taste like a nice vinegary-gingery-umami explosion) 

Over medium heat: 

-heat oil (I prefer sesame but again, any oil will do)

saute broccoli until it starts turning a brighter green (if adding bell pepper, add them now)

-saute whites of spring onions for 3-4 minutes or until soft 

-saute garlic and a small dollop of extra ginger until fragrant 

 -(optional I add a serrano/hot pepper at this point and saute a couple minutes)

-add chickpeas with marinade

-bubble for 3 minutes 

- add carrots and stir altogether 

-add Kung Pao Sauce (start with half a bottle and taste until you get the flavor you want and add more.  At most I usually add 3/4 bottle for my taste preference) 

-add peanuts, stir to combine

-Bubble for 5-10 minutes, should be deliciously sticky and thick and hot! Serve over rice or noodles and enjoy!

Recipe courtesy of my sister Leva Grace

On the Move

Treadmill arrived today!  WooHoo!!!  It was a workout getting it upstairs so yeah for me for working out.  Seriously though, I love it.  Once it was all set up I only had 30 minutes that I could use it but it felt so good.  Can't wait until tomorrow when I can use it again and for longer!

Today was just a really good day.  Hubby and I both agreed that we weren't hungry today like we were the first two days.  Hopefully that means that we are in ketosis. Hubby and I both forgot to eat our afternoon snack today even.  Meals have been tasty. Grilled some sirloins tonight and then I tried smashed cauliflower.  It was good. It fulfills the mashed potato craving.

So far my only struggle is my nighttime snacking.  I miss it.  I want a soda and popcorn at night while watching TV so bad.  UGH!

Lunch today was chicken salad lettuce wraps.  So good!

Treadmill arrived!  It was HUGE, we barely got it upstairs!

48-Hours in the Books

The first 48-hours of my diet are in the books. It's gone well.  I'm having a hard time finding snacks but meals are good and satisfying.  I've had a headache for about 24-hours, I'm thinking that is due to carb/sugar withdrawal. I hope that ends soon.  I also just learned that a diet, like Atkins, that gets your body in to ketosis is good for people with PCOS!  Hooray!!!

It's been really nice having having the hubby dieting with me, I am super optimistic that this will make the diet journey much easier than the past.

Tomorrow the treadmill comes, I'm super excited about that.  This will be the first time that I will be dieting and excercising together.

I REALLY want this to work!

Here is a sampling of today's lunch.

And We're Off

After many failed weight loss attempts over the last 12-years I am hoping that the one I am starting today... Leap Day... will be the one!  I've done, Atkins, Weight Watchers (a couple times) NutriSystem, my own variation of NutriSystem, and now Atkins again.  I always start off gung ho but have never made it past the 2-month mark.  I've been most successful with Atkins in the past.

Why am I more optimistic this time?  First the hubby is joining me on this journey.  I won't be alone in my sometimes agonizing journey.  He's not doing it for weight loss but more for long term health reasons.  At his annual exam his cholesterol was a little high and his doctor recommended a low carb lifestyle.  Hence the word lifestyle.  This won't be a diet for my hubby and me, this is going to be our new way of eating. Changing 35-years of habits is going to be rough.  99% of my tried and true recipes for our family contain some sort of carbohydrate.  We love pasta, potatoes, bread, chips, you know, the good stuff.  So I've been digging through Pintrest to get recipes for mashed garlic cauliflower, zucchini noodles, portobello mushroom buns & spaghetti from squash. All good just not the comfort foods one grows up with.  It's going to take some trial and error and work to find new recipes to replace old ones, those good tried and true recipes that you go to in a pinch or fall back on when meal planning and don't need a recipe to know the ingredients. Really I'll be reprogramming.  I'm optimistic it won't take too long to adjust.

Second, I spent way too much money on a treadmill.  I don't like wasting money and so the hit to the pocketbook will hopefully add to the motivation.  I've wanted a treadmill for years.  I don't like mornings, I'm not going to get up and walk in the morning, it just ain't happening.  Walking in the afternoon is hard, life gets busy and well I live in South Texas, it also gets hot.  Evenings are rarely an option with 4-kids all going different ways.  I'm also not afraid to admit that I am horribly out of shape and we live in the hills.  One trek around my block and I am miserable.  I need nice even ground.  If I'm miserable the odds of me getting out there several times a week is not good.  With the treadmill I can still be lazy but get the exercise.  I can control the weather, topography, work on the computer, watch a movie, read, and more while getting my workout in!  WooHoo!

My ultimate goal is to lose 90 lbs.  My short term goal is to lose 10% of my body weight, rounded up that means 24 lbs.  I'm optimistic I can lose that in 6 to 7 weeks. My goal after that is to see the scale under the 200 lb mark.  We might be going to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico in August, my goal for then is to be 199 lbs or less.  That's averaging a loss of 2 lbs a week.

My goal for this blog is to journal my weight loss journey.  I enjoy journaling and hope this blog can be one more tool for keeping me accountable. I hope to post on here 5+ times a week, even if it was just the days menu. So ultimately this blog is for me and will be pretty mundane but if anyone wants to follow along that is great too!